


Forging a Path (as a Team of course)

by Pleasedial123



Series: How to Make a Team [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto), BAMF Hatake Kakashi, Kakashi's POV, Team as Family, minor politics, minor worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:54:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25631635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pleasedial123/pseuds/Pleasedial123
Summary: The Chunin exams and the invasion are over. The consequences are still happening. But Team Seven will continue on, closer and stronger than ever, and they will not be separated.  Kakashi will die before letting his team be broken apart or taken from him.Things get easier and yet harder the stronger you get.
Series: How to Make a Team [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1225901
Comments: 217
Kudos: 2420





	Forging a Path (as a Team of course)

Kakashi twirled the flower stem between gloved fingers and stared at the brilliant white petals. He wondered idly if he was allowed to mourn a man he had once tried to kill. 

Naruto’s hands were clenched in Umino’s haori, knuckles white with the strength of his grip. His eyes were red and puffy, tears to close to the surface to hide. His mourning clothes were too tight in the shoulders and it made Kakashi realize that Naruto had grown in the past year, shot up enough he was as tall as Sasuke now, but bulkier than the Uchiha would ever be. The borrowed clothes were ill fitted but had been all he had been able to get at the last minute, an Uchiwa fan carefully pulled loose from the back. 

Sasuke and Sakura had better fitting mourning clothes, Sasuke’s pulled from a cousin’s closet and Sakura’s obviously tailored to her (most likely by her mother). Both of them looked less shaken as well, faces tinged with a sort of universal grief, of someone you sort of knew about suddenly no longer there. Their grief was, more truthfully, for Naruto who had lost someone like a grandfather.

Kakashi twirled the lily and thought uncharitably about how little Sarutobi deserved Naruto’s grief. What had he done for the boy? Made sure he received the orphan’s allowance? Got him a shitty apartment in the Flower District at age five? Bought him ramen every few weeks? Been there only briefly, flittingly through his life when he could have instead given Naruto a family?

Kakashi stared at the flower and thought about his former Hokage. 

Oh well, he thought dropping the flower into the casket; The dead were dead. There was no use in loving or hating them after their death.

“Rest Well, Sandaime-sama,” Kakashi murmured. 

We are still alive to carry the Will of Fire on, Kakashi did not say, And I trust my team to do it better than you.

.--.

“How is Naruto?” Umino asked softly.

“Sad,” Kakashi said.

Umino bowed his head. Kakashi thought of Naruto tucked between Sasuke and Sakura, asleep because he cried himself out. 

Umino poured him a cup of tea and Kakashi watched him for a long moment as the man poured his own tea and then turned to look out over Konoha. Umino had found a very nice little spot, one of the resting spots on eth stairway up the monument. Their legs dangled over the hundreds of feet drop. Kakashi could faintly sense the team of ANBU hidden around them as well, all neatly tucked away. And all out of sight, watching their backs, not their fronts.

Kakashi sighed and pulled his mask down. Umino looked, of course he did, he’d been curious like every other Konoha citizen, but eh made no remark on the showing. 

“What now, Hokage-sama,” Kakashi asked.

“Don’t call me that,” Umino said shortly, not so much a reprimand as a warning, “I will not be the next Kage.”

“No?” Kakashi hummed.

“I’m not strong enough for the position,” Umino said simply, “Nor will I have the political support. Which suits me fine; I am not meant to be Kage. I am what I need to be.”

“And what exactly is that?” Kakashi needled.

Umino simply smiled politely and sipped his tea. Kakashi sipped his own and made a faint note to ask Umino where he had gotten his thermos under less serious circumstances; it kept the tea quite hot and had cute little dogs on the outside. 

Umino’s gaze fell down and Kakashi followed it to see lights on in the Hokage office.

“Now, who is up and about so late?” Kakashi hummed.

“Who do you think?” Umino snorted. 

“Mah, Danzo never rests does he?”

“Not just Danzo,” Umino sipped his tea. 

“What is he looking for do you think?” Kakashi asked.

“Nothing he will find,” Umino smiled, “Sarutobi did not leave anything out and about.”

“Don’t seals fail upon the death of their sealer?” Kakashi asked lightly, the part of the fool.

“Some might be easier to open,” Umino corrected, “But anything under lock and key in that office will have more than one sealer, more than one key.”

He gave Kakashi a bland smile and Kakashi hid a smile in his tea. They sipped their tea under the bright stars and watched the lights in the Hokage office go out. 

“The council plans to meet tomorrow,” Umino said idly.

“The day after the death of the Kage?” Kakashi raised a brow, “That’s rather… uncouth.”

“They are going to use the excuse of the invasion to negate the typical mourning period,” Umino hummed, “And they are going to try and make Jiraya the fifth Hokage.”

Kakashi paused.

“They want a puppet Kage?” Kakashi raised a brow.

Because Jiraya was brilliant and bright and strong, but damn if that man didn’t hate doing paperwork or running things like an office. He’d skive off as much as possible and delegate whenever he could. You would think as a spy master he might be more informed and cannier of plots in eth dark, but his network had always been mainly outside of Konoha. Trying to run that (since he would have no time to train anyone else to take the reins) and trying to be kage would leave him stretched thin. It would be easy for people like Danzo, Utatane, and Mitokado to gain more power and control. 

Not to mention he’d use that power to wrangle Naruto as his student.

“What’s your plan?” Kakashi asked bluntly. 

“You called me Hokage-sama,” Umino said, “But of the two of us sitting here…”

“No,” Kakashi groaned, “Please no.”

“Sarutobi and I had our doubts, but then you took Team Seven and, well,” Umino smiled.

“The damned clipboard,” Kakashi muttered. 

“We’ve been watching you very closely,” Umino said, “You not only trained your team, but yourself. You are peak physical condition, your chakra had improved, and you have started socializing again. You would have support.”

Kakashi covered his face with his hands. 

“Umino, if you make me Hokage, I’m firing you and sending you on a long-term mission to scout swamp country.

Umino laughed at him. 

“I’m, serious though,” Kakashi said with less humor, “I will not accept the position.”

“It is not a role one accepts; it is one thrust upon them,” Umino said idly looking across Konoha.

“I have a Team I need to see to adulthood,” Kakashi said, “A team with enemies who will try their damndest to make sure they never grow up. I didn’t want to be a teacher and you all made me, now I will not give them up. Do not make me do so, Umino.”

“You would not be the first kage to train a team,” Umino said softly.

“No. I will not make my team play second place to duties,” Kakashi shook his head.

They were both silent for a long moment. 

“Then it shall be Tsunade,” Umino finally declared solemnly. 

“That will be a challenge and a half,” Kakashi sighed.

“One Jiraya will volunteer for,” Umino hummed, “And you know who he will request to accompany him. Sarutobi is no longer here to block that request.”

“Then I shall go with them,” Kakashi said simply.

“Kakashi,” Umino sighed, “We can not afford to have the Copy-nin absent from Konoha right after an invasion.”

Kakashi stayed silent mulishly. 

“Think of someone else you would trust,” Umino relented, “Try to make sure they are not key to Konoha’s image right now, and I will make sure they go.”

Kakashi closed his eyes. Umino knocked their shoulders together and Kakashi tried to take comfort in his support. 

Not many people knew exactly what Umino was to Konoha, what he did. But Kakashi knew he could work miracles if you had his support.

“Thank you,” he said honestly.

“Go home to your kids, Kakashi,” Umino smiled at him.

Kakashi went home to his kids.

.--.

“You cannot escape your duty,” Utatane told him, eyes sharp and mean, “If we did not have another candidate you would be donning the hat. As it is, you will be intern Kage.”

“Can’t the council act as such?” Kakashi asked calmly.

Not that that was a better situation.

“We need someone at the helm who has the power to make the other nations wary of engaging at the moment,” Mikokado said, “And it send a good message if Hatake Kakashi is acting as Interm, it implies a stronger Leader is on the works.”

Kakashi didn’t let himself twitch or show any discomfort and simply nodded his head. 

“The forces will be told the new chain of command,” Danzo said from the back, eyes watching Kakashi carefully, “You will not have the complete power of the Kage, but the forces will be yours to command. Do Konoha proud Hatake.”

Kakashi resisted the urge to snarl at Danzo and his obvious disdain of Kakashi. He knew the three old biddies would trying to take as much power as they could right now. Trying to make him a puppet Interm by saying he had military power but not any other power. That meant they held the other power. 

Or they thought they did.

He couldn’t wait to see them try to take command and get summarily ignored or worked around. The important figures in Konoha (Shikakau the Jonin Commander, Inoichi head of TI, Hiashi Head of Foreign Relations, the Mysterious ANBU Commander, Etc.) knew exactly who was in charge. They would look to Kakashi and Umino for real commands. Not openly of course, but it would be obvious to those who looked. 

“For Konoha,” Kakashi bowed his head, hiding any such thoughts.

.--.

**Author's Note:**

> On to the Third Instillation. More politics and scheming. Kakashi will do what he has to to keep his team, even if it means taking a position he does not want.


End file.
